Enjoy!

• Article/Coverage on C IO.com
• Article/Coverage on PCWorld
• Optify – B2B Inbound Marketing

You may have an amazing website, but not many people will see it if other sites aren’t linking to it.

Relevant inbound links from authoritative, trusted and/or quality websites are every search marketer’s dream. (An inbound link, also called a backlink, is a link from an external site that points to content on your site.) Google, which owns about 66 percent of the search engine market according to comScore, sees such links as votes of confidence for your content. Because Google wants to serve users the most relevant, freshest, trustworthy results, inbound links from trusted sites to yours can go a long way toward pushing your content up in search result rankings.

Of course, obtaining those inbound links takes considerable time, effort and resources. There are also a lot of myths and misunderstandings related to link building. For example, some believe Google will penalize you for getting too many links too quickly (not necessarily) or that reciprocal links are a surefire way to boost your rankings (it depends).

To help your site develop a quality inbound link profile, we’ve collected 25 top link-building strategies and tips from three experts:

Eric Ward, a link-building strategist since 1994 and author of LinkMoses, an email newsletter ($8 monthly).

Debra Mastaler, president of Alliance-Link, which provides custom link building training.

Scott Fasser, director of customer experience for Optify, developer of SaaS-based inbound marketing software.

Set Your Link-Building Foundation

1. Put someone in charge.

Because link building is time-consuming and resource intensive, someone needs to be responsible for driving the effort, Fasser says. “You need someone focused on actively managing the program, promoting the right content and always looking for new opportunities.”

2. Set up a process for monitoring and measuring progress.

From the beginning, have a method in place–usually accomplished via SaaS tools–to monitor and measure your link-building efforts on a regular basis. “If you don’t have that process set up, when someone asks how effective your link-building campaign is, you won’t have a good answer,” Fasser says. “And if you don’t have a good answer, you’re not likely to get the time and resources you need to continue the link building.”

3. Don’t outsource your entire link-building campaign.

“You can’t outsource 100 percent of your link building or website promotion to a third-party and expect to get the same results you’d get if you had someone doing it in-house. You need someone in-house who really knows your industry,” Ward says, since that will give link campaign strategies both context and focus.

Every site, Ward adds, “was designed with a specific and potentially unique audience in mind, specific objectives for that audience and specific subject matter. Doesn’t it make sense that every site is going to require a specific approach to link building and content publicity? You can’t cookie-cutter the process.”

4. Begin by examining the links on your own site.

Unlike most inbound links, the links on your site are entirely within your control. Take a close look at how you’re linking to your own content on your site. Are you using keyword-rich anchor text to point to relevant content elsewhere on the site? (Anchor text is a hyperlinked phrase, such as click here, that links to content that typically exists on another web page.) If anchor text is not keyword-rich, revise it, Fasser says. This can help the content that’s being linked to with anchor text get a boost in search engine relevancy.

5. Create a baseline of existing inbound links.

Use a tool such as SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer to see which sites are currently linking to yours as well as the anchor text used in those inbound links, Fasser advises. This provides a snapshot of your complete inbound link profile, which is useful for tracking progress.

Open Site Explorer can help you improve your link-building strategy by providing a quick look at your inbound links–and the ones your competitors have.

Open Site Explorer data can be exported in CSV format. The basic tool is free. Additional features are included in subscription plans that start at $99 monthly.

6. Study your competitors’ links.

You can also use tools such as Open Site Explorer to investigate the links your competitors have, Fasser says. This can provide ideas for directories and other sites to pursue.

7. Go after links your competitors don’t have.

It’s not enough to simply find out which links your competitors are getting and go after them. At best, that will simply put you on an equal footing with them. You should also pursue inbound links your competitors dont have, Ward says.

8. Focus on link quality, not quantity.

Relevant links from a few high-quality, trusted, authoritative sites are worth more in SEO terms than a ton of links from low-quality sites, Mastaler says.

9. Develop a list of top-priority keywords and use them in your online content.

Determine which keywords have the most search volume, are the least competitive and have the highest relevancy to your business and its products or services, Fasser advises. Use those keywords in your blog posts, white papers, press releases and other online content. “When you get links from other sites to your content, you’ll be more likely to get good-quality anchor text links using your important keywords,” he explains.

How to Get Inbound Links

10. Begin with the low-hanging fruit.

Ask for links from industry connections. Suppliers, donors, employees, retired employees, industry associations, forums, fraternal organizations and anyone else with whom you’re affiliated can offer a great place to start your link-building strategies, Mastaler notes. Any individual or entity with which you have “a point of commonality” can serve as low-hanging fruit in your link-building efforts, she adds. Ask them to link to your resources page, blog or other page on your site, or for a listing in their directory.

11. Focus on directories relevant to your industry.

General Web directories are fairly useless in helping your site rise in search result rankings or attract targeted traffic, Ward says. A far better strategy, he adds, is to go after vertically oriented, curated directories maintained by people with “extreme knowledge or passion” who take their time to “collect useful resources.”

The best Web directories are those maintained by people who are doing it out of passion, not for SEO. “Google loves and respects these sites because there’s a layer of human quality control involved,” Ward explains. “The more heavily edited or curated the content is, the more likely it is that Google will respect an anchor text link from that site.”

12. Go after a diverse set of links.

The best link-building practice is to obtain inbound links to pages across your site, not just your home page, from a variety of domains using different anchor text keywords, Fasser advises. Just as it’s important not to invest in one stock, the same holds true for your link portfolio–ideally, you want to get traffic from many sources. Also, a diverse set of links and anchor text keywords gives you more credibility with search engines.

13. Focus on relevant links.

An inbound link from a site that’s relevant to your business is worth more for ranking purpose–sas well as for attracting targeted traffic–than a link from your cousin Billy’s site about his favorite beer. “Getting a blog or other site that writes about things related to your product is the way to go,” Fasser says.

14. Develop high-quality content.

Google’s Panda update of 2011 pushed pages it considered to have poorly written and/or spammy content way down in its rankings. As a consequence, Web sites need to focus on creating high-quality content that’s informative, useful and relevant, Fasser says. Not only will high-quality content keep you out of Google’s crosshairs, it will help you attract inbound links and targeted traffic.

15. Create infographics and make them easy to share.

Infographics are extremely popular and can increase site traffic, Mastaler says. Other sites often link to them, and they can get lots of Tweets and Facebook likes.

For example, BlueGlass Interactive developed a content marketing infographic that Mashable subsequently hosted. As a result, the infographic has attracted more than 3,800 Tweets, 650 Google +1s and 1,100 Facebook likes.

The keys to getting your infographics posted and shared is to make them visually compelling, informative and neutral in tone–that is, not about your company. It’s OK to put your brand on an infographic aimed at consumers, Mastaler adds, as long as you understand that businesses will be less likely to share it.

16. Create custom widgets.

Customize a widget that delivers information relevant to your business, make the widget easy to post on other sites (via cut and paste) and embed a link back to your site, Mastaler suggests. She recommends Widgetbox, an online service that lets you use existing or create custom widgets for $25 monthly and up.

For a monthly fee that starts at $25, WidgetBox will help you build a custom widget that you can easily post on other sites.

Together, infographics and widgets are “a great use of your time” in delivering ROI to your link-building strategies, Fasser adds.

17. Write product reviews.

Well-written reviews of products related to your industry or niche are ideal “linkbait” to post on your site, says Mastaler. Include images (and credit the source) with your reviews to drive engagement. To help each review get noticed, post a link to it and a description on LinkedIn, Quora and Twitter. Create a Pinterest board with photos of the products you’ve reviewed; each pin (or photo) will include a link back to your site. Video and podcast reviews are another way to attract links and traffic.

18. Develop social media press releases.

A social media press release typically includes one or more photos, social sharing links and video clips. As such, it’s more likely to get picked up by other sites, Mastaler says. Services such as BusinessWire and PRWeb will host your release and distribute it to news services and media outlets across the Web. Be sure to include your top keywords and one or more anchor text links back to your site within the release.

You can use services such as BusinessWire to host press releases. Include keywords and at least one anchor text link back to your site for even better visibility.

19. Don’t forget online forums.

Online forums are “a tremendous resource,” Mastaler says, since that’s where you’ll find people who are passionate and are often active bloggers. If you can connect with them in a meaningful or helpful way without overdoing a sales pitch, forum members may reward you with a link.

Other Helpful Link-building Strategies

20. Be sure you really need a link before you pursue it.

Before you request an inbound link, ask yourself if you really have a good chance of getting it, Fasser advises. “Link building eats up a lot of time and resources, so make sure you’ve taken the time to understand the site and its content and if it’s truly relevant for what you do.”

21. Reciprocal links aren’t necessarily a bad–or good–strategy.

“Many people mistakenly make a blanket statement that a particular link-building tactic is good or bad” in terms of SEO effectiveness, Ward says. “The reality is, its just not that simple.”

His advice: “Always ask yourself if you would pursue a link (reciprocal or not) if there were no such thing as Google. Instead, do it because swapping links with another site will be beneficial in some way to your site’s visitors.” As one example, it makes perfect sense for a local veterinarian to exchange a link with a dog grooming service in the area.

22. Big, sudden changes in your inbound links may–or may not–get you into trouble.

Some worry that if their site suddenly attracts a ton of inbound links, Google will suspect black hat or unorthodox link-building activity is occurring and penalize that site in the rankings, Ward says.

The truth is, he says, it depends on the site, its history, the links and the circumstances. If a company is suddenly in the news, its site is likely to gain thousands of inbound links in a few days, with no penalty from Google. Conversely, if about 8 percent of your inbound links had keywords in them and, suddenly, 30 percent of your links are keyword-rich, Google might be suspicious.

“I hate to compare Google to an IRS auditor, but, in some ways, it’s true. Google is auditing your site, looking for things outside the norm,” Ward says. That’s why it’s best to grow links naturally by developing and publicizing great content, instead of hiring someone to plant thousands of identical anchor text links to your site on low-quality websites within only a few days.

23. Make content easy to share over social media.

Whenever you post new content on your site, such as a white paper or video, Fasser says to be sure its easy to share across social media. Social media updates containing links are great for building traffic and awareness. You should also share the new content with a Tweet or social media update that includes a relevant keyword and a shortened link, such as from bit.ly, to the content.

24. Your site’s ideal link builders will do the job for free.

“The person who is your best link builder is the one who visits your site, likes it, and wants to share it with others,” Ward says. That’s why it’s important to ask yourself what can someone do with your content once they see it, he adds. “It’s a mistake not to give people a way to share your content with a Google +1, Facebook Like, or Twitter button. Make it easy for them.”

25. Don’t put all your eggs in the Google basket.

Too many people put too much emphasis on getting traffic from search engines, Ward says. “The more of your traffic thats coming from Google, the more precarious your position is. Your rankings are fluid and subject to every Google algorithm update,” he says. “I’ve had clients call me and say that, all of a sudden, they’re no longer ranking well and it’s costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.”

Instead, your goal should be to get traffic from a variety of sites, of which Google is simply one. Though achieving this takes time, Ward acknowledges, it gives you a solid, stable foundation that will serve you well in the long run.

Scott,

I am working on creating a college football blog and have been brainstorming various names. My initial idea was to use the keyword “college football” with some other word, or maybe use “Saturday” with another word. However all the feedback I am getting from friends and colleagues is why limit myself to just college (or Saturday) by specifically naming the blog something that suggests only college football, when I could instead name it something related to football (in general) and then have the ability to expand in the future by adding the NFL.

Which do you believe is the better course of action? At this moment the blog (and my interest and expertise) is 100% focused on college football. However I have already received inquiries from others who would like to contribute NFL content.

Thank you for your time,

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Hi Tim,

I think focusing on a blog name that includes college and football in the name is the best approach unless you are ESPN .

Lead Nurturing's Place in the Sales Funnel

Lead nurturing is a concept that is gaining interest as companies continue to look for efficiencies in their marketing and sales operations. Lead nurturing is part of the larger process of marketing automation, but focuses specifically on stage between initial contact with a prospect and the closed won state of the deal.

Lead nurturing is more of a business to business tactic (B2B) vs a business to consumer (B2C) tactic. This is because B2C is mostly focused on transactional interactions with website visitors (get the sale, generate more page views for ads, get them to return for more content & up-sells, etc.) than using a website to build a relationship for larger, more in-depth relationships (aka – a business deal).

What is Lead Nurturing?

So, what is lead nurturing? Lead nurturing is a system for continuing a conversation with a prospect from initial contact until the person is sales ready and closed lost/won. Lead nurturing is most closely associated with email, but email is just one method of contacting the prospect between the time they offer up their name and contact information and the time they are sales ready.

Why is Lead Nurturing Important?

Lead nurturing is becoming more important because B2B marketing online is more content driven than ever. We create webinars, whitepapers, blog posts, analyst reports and infographics that bring people to our websites earlier and earlier in the buy cycle. So, we know they are interested in the content we have and possibly our solution, but they aren’t SALES READY yet. By sales ready, I mean ready to get serious about a solution – they don’t have Budget, Authority, Need or Timing (BANT) to sign a contract.

What are the Important Components of Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is NOT just email. This is a common misconception. While email is an important component of delivering the automated messages of email and is necessary for  effective lead nurturing it is not sufficient. Here are the main components:

1. A Plan – Lead nurturing can be as easy as sending a series of emails to everyone who fills out a form to being as complex as a multi-thread communication plan based on source of lead,  behavioral activity on-site and triggered responses to touches. Much of this depends on how large your lead flow volume is (the more volume, the more complex you can get and still be effective) and how large the sale opportunity is (the bigger the possibility of the sale, the more resources you can throw at the program). Usually, the best plan is to start simple with a single lead nurture stream and build from there.
2. Website with Form Capture – I’m assuming you have an effective website with a good form on it. Form conversion is it’s own line of study and improvement, but getting that person’s email address as part of the initial contact is critical for on-going communication.
3. Contact/List Manager – Having a customer management system is important to automate when and where you contact people. Without a central way to manage the customer information, you will be sending random emails and not leveraging the efficiency of a website visit profile.
4. Content -  Every email and touchpoint should have unique, compelling content that helps educate the prospect about different aspects of the problem or solution they are dealing with. This is not an opportunity to hammer the selling of your product, but to show them that you and your company are an expert in their particular problem and that, oh by the way – we can help you solve that if you’d like. Content includes: Artitcles, Webinars, Case Studies, Press Releases, Surveys, Independent Research, Opinion Pieces and Comparisons.
5. Email Delivery – Creating, delivering and tracking email as a core component of Lead Nurturing is critical. Email is highly targeted, controlled (primarily timing), inexpensive and effective. Email does the “heavy lifting” of outreach so getting the delivery and management of the email process is imperative success.
6. Lead Scoring – You need an efficient way to switch people from a nurture campaign to a sales qualified lead and into the queue for a sales person to engage. Using a lead scoring system in which a certain score – 60 out of 100, etc. – means that the person has taken some action to boost their score and is ready to be engaged. Some score boosting behaviors include: visiting the site more than once, clicking on a contact us button, downloading a spec sheet, visiting a tech requirements or customer testimonial page, Tweeting a question about your product or looking for recommendations.
7. Reporting – Understanding the source of traffic, visit/interaction profile of the prospect, cost of the touch and which tactic triggered an activity is the Cadillac or reporting systems. Start with effectiveness of each channel – email – newsletter, email-nurture, paid search, organic search, social, direct, referrals, etc. is a great start to building your benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPI’s).

Wrap Up

Lead Nurturing can be a great way to leverage content you are creating to automatically continue a conversation with a prospect while they are working towards a buying decision. Nurturing is NOT just email, but a systematic way of communicating with and educating a prospect on a solution. Don’t  hard sell, be helpful and be ready to reach out when the behavior signals a move towards the decision making stage of the buy cycle.

Let me know what you think of the article!

New Twitter Interface

But, this post is about the new Twitter – there are four things I really like about the updated design and new functionality:

1. The new bar at the top including @connect and #discover. The @connect shows everyone who has mentioned me in their tweets from latest to earliest. In reviewing this I realized that I neglected to respond to an email to Eric – sorry! The #discover tag gives you a quick view into the rapid happenings captured by Twitter. The immediacy of Twitter is still it’s biggest value.
2. Integration of videos and images into the main stream of tweets. This makes sharing and consuming the non-text much easier. Use #discover for SOPA and see the search results page for a great example – https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23SOPA
3. Embedded Tweets. You can now grab embed codes for your favorite tweets. This means that rather than taking screen shots of tweets and uploading images to blogs and websites, you can embed tweets so that users can interact directly from the site.
4. Brand Pages. Twitter is jumping on the business support train – finally! All major networks are starting to give businesses the tools to interact with current and future customers instead of relying on personal networks. These pages allow brands to add a customized banner to their Twitter profile page. This customization increases brand awareness and gives brands the ability to promote a particular phrase, image, or promotion/event. In addition, brands are able to pin tweets to the top of their pages, drawing attention to content that the brand feels is most relevant to its audience. Check out the Jet Blue page – https://twitter.com/#!/JetBlue

Social is more than a channel – it is a new way of communicating and interacting. I think this internet thing has some legs…

• What are QR Codes (Quick Response)
• How do they work
• What are some ways to use them
• Some examples
• Some best practices

Enjoy!

Myth #1: Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand

Removing distractions so we can focus without moving back and forth – mentally – between email and conversations or whatever – is critical to get more things done. Humans don’t really multi-task – we transfer attention quickly which causes mental downtime between the focus items.

Myth #2: A little bit of anxiety helps us perform better

I’m not sure I agree with his thinking on this as a little anxiety helps me focus and work harder, but is probably hard on my health. Tony’s point here is that when we are performing our best, it is when we are reaching for the stars and not running from the big bad wolf.

Myth #3: Creativity is genetically inherited, and it’s impossible to teach

While I agree that we can learn to become more creative as  Tony opines, I believe there are different types of creativity and that we all have a “lane” that we are within more or less. I have a friend – David Harto – who is  one of the most creative people in the world from the standpoint of envisioning and creating out of nothing. I have no aspirations to his type of creativity, but I have my own way of being creative that he won’t approach. It’s relative, but can be improved.

Myth #4: The best way to get more done is to work longer hours

I believe this one as at the end of a day or week, more hours don’t help as I’m fried. I actively take breaks during the day to re-set and re-focus.

It’s a good article and worth a read here

In part one of this series, we discussed establishing the metrics and benchmarks for your restaurant. In part two, we’ll talk about tuning up your website so that when your site is found (which we’ll go deeper into in the next post), you have the best chance to engage the visitor and encourage them to choose your restaurant over the other options.

Build Relevant Content

Every restaurant should have a minimum number of pages on their website that answers specific questions and provides specific information to the visitor while encouraging them to select you for their experience.

• Homepage – Establishes the brand look and feel, value proposition (why are you the best restaurant in your niche?), what makes you different and excellent navigation to the rest of the pages. You should also have your phone number displayed prominently on your homepage for mobile users who find your site on a smartphone
• Menu’s – What are you serving, when and how much – set the right expectation for the visitor
• Directions/Map/Hours of Operation/Payment Types accepted – Make sure this information aligns with all of the other places this data will live like Google Places, Yelp, CitySearch, etc. – We’ll get more into these sites in the next post in the series.
• Awards, News, Testimonials – Who else says you are great? Local and national press is best
• Review Page > all the great reviews from Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google, UrbanSpoon, etc.
• Dining Club, Newsletter or Some other Way to Collect Email Addresses – Converting an unknown website visitor into a known person that you can reach out to via email is critical for relationship building and audience growth. Dining clubs, newsletters, emails, etc are critical for this. This page should have a form, privacy guarantees and a strong reason for people to give you their email address/trust to contact them.
• Catering? Banquets? Retail?> any information on ancillary services, space for banquets, sauces or rubs that you sell, etc. These should be built on their own, individual pages
• Blog – why every restaurant doesn’t have a blog going nowadays is beyond me. I think of all of the posts around new recipes, new drink cocktails, events, parties, charity projects, big personnel changes, etc.
• Resources or Sites We Like or Partners – A spot to link to your favorite source of bacon or the wholesale wine broker of your dreams. Giving link love to the sites that you love should result in getting links back.

Optimize Each Page

There are two major ways to think about optimizing web pages – First, for the user experience and Second, for the search engines. Both of these should be considered and acted on for EVERY page of your site so that the page is as PRODUCTIVE as possible. Here is a quick set of considerations for each.

User Experience Page Optimization

People scan pages first and then read. The makes the information hierarchy on the page (what is big, what is small, what is where) very important. Here is some guidance to the content you put on the page.

• A short strong headline is critical – answers the question of where am I?
• A sub-headline that qualifies the headline
• A little info about what you want them to know – preferably in bullet format or short sentences broken up by whitespace
• Videos, Images and good text formats make the page interesting looking and easier to scan
• A strong call to action > what do you want them to do next? Call? Sign-Up for Something? Like You on Facebook? Follow you on Twitter? Go to another page? Make this action obvious and in the main eye flow of the page – not jammed in the upper right corner of stuffed into a footer
• If you are interested in more information on this very important topic – read “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug.

Search Engine Page Optimization

Some of the recommendations here are dependent on what your content management system (CMS) allows, but all are important so that you have the best chance of presenting your website properly to search engines for inclusion and ranking.

• If you have the option to make the page file name (/menu.html) descriptive – please do so.  A file name like /3×451.html or ?p=134  tells the search engines NOTHING about the page. This is a CMS issue so depending on which platform your website is built on, this should be updated. It is easy with wordpress, less easy with others – but important!
• Keyword specific, clear, unique title tags – also called page title or browser tag. This tag shows up at the very top of the browser when you are on a page and is the title of your page result in Google, Bing, Yahoo when your page is displayed. It should be seen as a way to position and market the page to the person typing in “best restaurant in …” or “great <italian, american, vietnamese> restaurant in downtown <city>”
• Keep title tag under 64 characters total (including spaces) so that it all shows up in the search engine results page (SERP)
• Create a unique meta description tag – this is the body of the result in the search engine and does not contribute to rank, but contributes to someone wanting to click through to your page. Make it compelling and exploratory like “See why our meatballs are the best in the city!” or “Learn why we have a 4.5 avg rating on yelp…”
• Keep meta description under 156 characters (same reason as title tag)
• Make your headline styled as an <h1> tag. This give the engines a heads up that this copy is important on the page
• Write good copy, but not too much – remember that copy is for visitors AND engines. Make it concise and well organized.
• Use Alt-Text for images and video – this gives text to page elements that search engines CAN”T read like images
• Use captions under images that describe the picture or video
• There are lots of SEO guides out there – Google SEO Guide for Beginners is a good start.

So, there you have part two of our series. Part three will be around increasing your website visibility in search engines, review sites and local portals/information sites. All of which you need to be keenly tuned-in to.

Thoughts?

Think inside out vs outside in

What – What You Do. The features, products, services you produce.

How – How You Do It. The processes you go through, the things that differentiate you and your products.

Why – Why You Do What You Do. Why do you get up every morning? Why will people care? Are  you working for money or working for a purpose. This is the core question you need to answer and build an organization/business on.

Simon talks quite a bit about the intrinsic buying response is to do business with people who believe the same things you do.

A quote he repeats quite often is

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” – Simon Sinek

The primary example he uses is Apple and their ability to innovate more rapidly in a more compelling way every year than it’s competitors. They are just a computer/device/phone manufacturer right?

Watch the video. Here it is again. And apply to your business and/or life work.

On the good side was Rand Fishkin – he and I are totally aligned on Content – Social – Search – Conversion working together for earned media, but I don’t think he went far enough. I’ll have a post on this in the near future. The session by Brian Fling on mobile development was great – he had one slide that showed a timeline of technologies: computing, network, internet, devices and web transitions and why we are at a major transition point (see below). The Digital Music panel and the So-Lo-Mo (Social, Local, Mobile) were both great.

Sessions I attended:

•  Rand Fishkin – Inbound Marketing is All Connected – Presentation @ http://bit.ly/inboundconnected
• Brian Fling – Pinch/Zoom – Mobile Design – Get Slides! @fling, book: mobiledesign.org
• Yelp – Darnel Holloway – Local for Business
• Digital Music Panel – Ross Reynolds (KUOW), Aaron Starkey (KEXP), Nick Harmer (DCFC), Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Tim Bierman (Pearl Jam Ten)
• Social Media Panel – Measuring ROI – Kevin O’Reilly (Spring Creek), Ben Straley (Meteor), Neil Beam (Conversean), Julie Storer (HTC)
• Mobile Experience – Alaska Airlines (Curtis Kopf) and Ubermind (Shehryar Khan)
• SoLoMo – Social Local Mobile Panel – Scott Macklin (UW MCOM), Bryan Trussel (Glympse), Daniel Cowen (Echoer), Jason Wilson (MapQuest), Monica Guzman (Geekwire)

Rand Fishkin – Inbound Marketing is All Connected – Presentation @ http://bit.ly/inboundconnected
- Why did we become a marketer? To push? Interrupt?
- You can’t buy my business, you have to earn my business
- Inbound Marketing – any tactic that relies on earning people’s attention instead of buying it
- Additional decks: social media marketing + seo
- Content > Search > Social > Conversion
- Search is still a big deal and growing – Google – 3 Billion searches per DAY
- Social is Discovery Prior to Interest = awareness?
- A front page post of Reddit will drive 50k – 100k referrals to a site. A top post with some longevity will drive 250k+
○ Kimpton: thanks for visiting, anything we can do? > I want bathtub full of reeces pieces and a bed full of kittens > We’ll see what we can do > arrives to a note card with a bathtub and bag of reeces pieces + photo of kittens on bed > takes picture, submits to Reddit – 100,000′s of visits > BIG ROI
- Top three positions covered by SEOmoz – third position was a video – more clicks on 3rd position than first two
- Conversion: listen/survey > why did you buy, why didn’t you buy? What do you like/not like? What is confusing/clear?
- What you say > how you say it
- Trust happens “out there” not just on Landing Page
- Tips/Steps
○ #1: Data as Content Marketing
○ #2: Video Content + SERP Visuals – SEOmoz uses http://wistia.com to host and measure videos to embed on site – link points back to SEOmoz NOT YouTube and send and submit videoXML site map for you
○ #3: Thought Leadership + Rel=Author – Author markup, connected to Google+ (see social media kpis)
○ #4: Social Networks for Personalized Rankings – using social to personalize results
○ #5: Link Building w/ Your Social Followers – use export.ly by Simply Measured > Klout Score > Good people who are following me who have good sites who are not linking to me. LinkedIN, email lists, other connected sources.
○ #6: Long Tail SEO via Gamification – Quora uses a point system, 80% complete
○ #7: PR through Social Outreach > followerwonk – search by profile description “bend journalist”
○ #8: Viral-Worthy Content via Q+A Research > what do people care about in your niche? Google discussions, Quora, what are people asking for?
○ #9: Influence Search Suggest through Branding > Google – not logged in > generic term brand > “travel blog everywhereist” example
○ #10: Leverage Thought Leaders to Build Content > survey people in your biz, ask an important question (how much do you charge for a website), collate and present data, survey responders and others will link to it

Brian Fling – Pinch/Zoom – Mobile Design – Get Slides! @fling, book: mobiledesign.org
- We are in the third major stage of mobile
- Mobile experiences are NOT made in Photoshop or Basecamp
- “We could build the best mobile app in the world, but if the client doesn’t understand it – it could be the worst app in the world”
- Mobile is REALLY hard
- Business Goals + Technical Goals + User Goals > sweet spot is in the middle of equilateral triangle
○ Ex: technical – dispense soda, business – improve productivity, user – satisfy thirst quickly
- Apple Strategy against innovators curve
○ Refresh product lines before they become tired > OK with just 50% of market
○ A bold vision empowers people to cross the chasm together
- Social media is not a thing – it is pervasive across everything
- I love the slide that overlays time lines with computing, network, internet, devices and web transitions – get slides?

Pinch Zoom Web Technology Time Line

- Massive convergence of ubiquity + 4G + ipv6 + touch phones + HTML5
- Pinch/zoom – mobile bootcamp > get slides!
○ Get brands on mobile path quickly
○ Create shared vision of how mobile is meant to improve vision
- Challenges
○ Platform aesthetic
○ Many resolutions
○ Pixels per inch
○ Orientation
○ Design grids
○ Perspective
○ Dimensions
○ Interactions
○ Motion
○ Transitions
○ Color
○ Typography
○ Iconography
- Phones (currently) are about short, simple tasks (less than 5 minutes) and context sensitive
- Inverse Journalist pyramid is a good model: Most Noteworthy Info (who, what, when where, why, how) comes FIRST, then details. Can leave anytime.
- Tablets are about focus + consumption + portability
○ Swipe vs scroll

Yelp – Darnel Holloway – Local for Business
- Transactional interactions
- Younger audience – 18-34, but affluent – money to spend
- 80% of reviews are positive (3 stars or more)
- Restaurants are largest group, but shopping is close secon
- Quality control for reviews
○ Users can take down own reviews > restaurant had responded, reached out, fixed it > reviewers take it down or update
○ Set of reviewer guidelines > no hate speech, have to represent first hand experience, no conflicts of interest
○ Automated review filter > suspicious reviews and reviewers – fake profiles, fake reviews, cottage industry
- Biz.yelp.com > starting point for business owners
○ Respond to reviewers > join the conversation
○ Reviews are a form of market research > look at competitors as well
○ Respond privately or publicly (don’t freak out)
- Recommend others on your Yelp listing to get them to recommend you
- Post check-in offers in Yelp > similar to FoureSquare > check-in can post to Twitter and Facebook like 4Square
- Consumers are looking at overall trends not necessarily individual bad reviews
○ Engage the bad review in a polite, respectful way

Digital Music Panel – Ross Reynolds (KUOW), Aaron Starkey (KEXP), Nick Harmer (DCFC), Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Tim Bierman (Pearl Jam Ten)
- Napster and broadband changed everything
- Transactions happen all the time > monetary and musically and interpersonal communication
- Digital has benefited fans the most > lost the radio filter
○ Cream rising to top > walking talking brands
- Easier to spread word about music
○ Musicians are spending as much time thinking about how to connect and share vs practicing and writing
○ Content, video, conversations way more time thinking about generating content and connecting to events
○ A lot more work involved now
- Is radio less important now?
○ Independent radio is needed, Comcast type mega stations/format are dying
○ There is so much music that the stations have to listen to listeners more
○ The future is IP connectivity
- So many options I don’t know what to do – smaller, trusted radio stations help guide
○ Delivered via airways vs via Internet – the personal touch is important
○ More than just jumping in a van and going on-tour
○ Hire a social/marketing firm instead of a record company
- Two way communication and how people interact
○ Social networks have huge influence > reviews, recommendations, radio choices – replacing the record store guy
○ Spotify > what friends are listening to
○ Ambassadors – many more out there -who do you trust? Who do you spend your time listening to
- Crash and Burn Tactics
○ Trying to manufacture a viral event/piece of content/fake website
○ Underestimating the connection speed available and how to balance cost vs audience
○ Not ready to support a success event – special tickets, items, new sales, etc. Server crashing, slow, bad experience
○ Video about exotic cars > do not buy views on YouTube – bought 30,000 views to get rolling, but audience was looking for Ferarri’s not Mix A Lot
- Success Tactics
○ Last album, 1st video – live-one take video-happening live-recorded and shown all at once – streaming in HD while making it
○ Underestimating the success of videos – Florence and Machine – 100k plus views of in-house
○ Local photographer – Chase Jarvis – Shot album cover based on what the audience wants you to wear – kept going and going
- There is a glass ceiling on touring revenue
○ You can only do so many shows for so long in your life
○ At what point do you stop touring and continue to monitize your music
- Younger artists
○ Fame first > I had 2,000,000 downloads of our video! For free!
○ How do you start making money to support the music?
- Social tools for audience development
○ Maps, cell phones, Twitter
- I can define myself now vs going through the publicity department or DJs
○ Lady Gaga re-defines herself on a weekly basis
- How do you support the giant middle class of working musicians
○ Longer careers
○ Bigger middle class of musicians
- Recored labels have shifted the contract
○ Not a record deal, but a full package deal: concerts, images, likenesses, downloads, streams, t-shirts, everything
- Future of Music
○ Celestial Jukebox coming
○ Free music, everywhere – 4G (LTE) connection speeds
○ The way we make music > big divide in terms of production of music – higher quality, virtual collaboration
- Mix misses the “Mystique” of artists – transparency can work for a lot of folks, but not everyone
○ I don’t want to see Prince eating BBQ
- Contract process has to speed up
○ It should not take 3 weeks to license one song

Social Media Panel – Measuring ROI – Kevin O’Reilly (Spring Creek), Ben Straley (Meteor), Neil Beam (Conversean), Julie Storer (HTC)
- Email – when new – experienced the same issues
- What is the business objectives?
- If you could track one metric, what would it be
- Direct measurement vs indirect measurement
- Long cycles, multiple touches, on-going conversations
- What are the transactions that you can and should measure > what was the financial impact
- Influencer Campaigns
○ Macro influencers (Justin Bieber), Micro Influencers (Matt Cutts at Google)
- Engagement as a metric
○ How to define

Mobile Experience – Alaska Airlines (Curtis Kopf) and Ubermind (Shehryar Khan)

- Work with leading companies
- Game changing, disruptive solutions > what is different, compelling
- Deep expertise in mobile and what it means
- Mobile is not a project > it is a long term channel and strategy
- Had to be designed for agility – iterate rapidly and often
- UberInsights
○ New to airline industry’s underlying complexity
○ Availability of backend services
○ Leaving “platform solution for truly custom app
○ Differentiated mobile strategy
○ Apply lessons learned from other industries
- Principles
○ Start with customes > not just an Alaska customer but what are they used to on mobile
○ Simple, intuitive experience
○ Be different
○ Seamlessly integrated teams
○ Be agile, learn and adapt
- Scenarios
○ User interface – the “flight jacket”
○ Mobile boarding pass
○ Responsive to customers changing needs
- What Helps
○ Committed product owner
○ Embrace agile development process
○ Tem chemistry
○ Constant feedback loop
○ Living, eating, breathing mobile

SoLoMo – Social Local Mobile Panel – Scott Macklin (UW MCOM), Bryan Trussel (Glympse), Daniel Cowen (Echoer), Jason Wilson (MapQuest), Monica Guzman (Geekwire)
- Where are you, where am I, what are we doing?
- Layer of utility and enhancing social relationships > connecting to places
- Help me make a decision about what is worth doing, what do my friends
- 350 million mobile Facebook apps, more smart phones purchased than not for the first time
- Where do you want to meet?
- I am here, come get me
- Find/attach one need
- Becomes more useful as more people are on it (the app)
- Phone has eyes (camera) it knows where it is (geo-location) > point the camera at something to get information – replaces the need for key input
- Read Snow Crash – merger of CIA with Library of Congress
- Sharing and generosity is at the core
- Privacy
○ They used to call it stalking, now they call it location based notification
○ Privacy means different things to different people
○ Share your location for a limited time frame, only you can send the Glympse > different for various situations
- Building the slo-lo-mo infrastructure
○ Like building a city > you didn’t start out saying how are we going to monetize this road
○ We will be surprised with what will come out of it
- Lots of Gadgets and how they are uses
○ Google maps, kindle, iphones, etc.